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I have been an avid fan of the humble Eldar Guardian Defender since I collected my first army and ran 80 of them ... back in the day. Since then I'm considering other options.

In this day and age, I've been considering some Mechdar lists, and it seems there are 3 troop choices that are tying for first place in terms of overall effectiveness, tactial edge and viability for running (what I see most people using).

(in no particular order)
1.) DAVU Falcon (5 Dire Avengers in Falcon)
2.) 10 Dire Avengers, Bladestorm something, WaveSerpent
3.) 6 Guardian Jetbikes, 2 Shuriken Cannons, Warlock with Spear, Embolden

Any thoughts the best troop choices for Mechdar, and their uses/roles & balance in the army?

I like the jetbikes for those last turn objective stealers

I'm also rather a fan of these two:

11 storm guardians w/ 2 flamers
warlock w/ destructor
in a waveserpent kitted as you like

and

3 jetbikes
shuricannon

no further upgrades.

DAVU is easily the best scoring option for Eldar, preferably in a Falcon but they are fine in a Serpent as well.
However you have missed the second best Troop option, Tri Flamer Storm Guardians (as posted above). In terms of damage output they outclass Bladestorm Avengers, they are slightly better against MEQ (obviously varies depending on how many template hits you get, but its pretty easy to get 6+ with proper use of tank shocks) and significantly better against anything weaker since you don't have to worry about cover saves. They are also better in assault, have more ablative wounds before your damage output drops off, can threaten vehicles with the Witchblade and come in cheaper than the Avengers. The only real downside is the drop in range, which rarely comes up when you are in a Serpent. Surviability/Ld is a moot point, since you assume that any Eldar infantry outside a transport is dead the following turn anyway.

5 strong units of Avengers are always going to form the core of a Mechdar army, 2-3 is the core for most armies above 1000pts. If you want some damage output from your troops/some more anti infantry burst then you add in one maybe two (max) Flamer Guardians in Serpents on top of this. Jetbikes are very much a backup option, I wouldn't recommend 6 strong units since for that cost you could get another Serpent + Avenger unit, which isn't going to die to anti infantry firepower and generally offers more. Really you only take them if you feel you really need another scoring unit and can't squeeze in a Serpent, so 70 odd points for 3 Jetbikes is a decent plan. Personally I would never take Bladestorm Avengers since your general anti infantry needs are filled by the S6 shooting, and as mentioned Flamer Guardians are better for close range burst.

1 more vote for tri flamer guardians in mech lists over max upgraded dire avenger squads. min squads and bikes and IMO I wouldn't upgrade avenger's transports to much no LWBL or TLEMLs use scatters or Scannon if you are short on points

storm guardian，2melta，worlock with heavy flamer

Hey, thanks for the heads up! Mmm, if Storm Guardians are that hot, maybe I'll do a squad or two. I love the Guardian model, very dynamic, and I do agree 11 Guardians, 1 Warlock and 3 flamer templates is pretty good for ... 135 points! I can see they're better than DA for fire output to points cost, DA are nice for added range and possible resilience to surviving an assault, so there's clearly a place for all of them in a list.

Slightly off topic- what the is a DAVU falcon?!?!?!?

I get that it's a 5 man DA squad in a falcon, so I'm assuming the DA in DAVU is "dire avenger"...what the hell does the VU stand for >,<?

Jihallah wrote:Slightly off topic- what the is a DAVU falcon?!?!?!?

I get that it's a 5 man DA squad in a falcon, so I'm assuming the DA in DAVU is "dire avenger"...what the hell does the VU stand for >,<?

Vehicle Upgrade

tedurur wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Slightly off topic- what the is a DAVU falcon?!?!?!?

I get that it's a 5 man DA squad in a falcon, so I'm assuming the DA in DAVU is "dire avenger"...what the hell does the VU stand for >,<?

Vehicle Upgrade

I approve !

What is DAVU

As described in the post above, it stands for Dire Avenger Vehicle Upgrade, and is used to refer to squad of (usually) 5 Dire Avengers taken solely for their ability to allow the fielding of Wave Serpents.

EDIT: And also to sit in Falcons to make them scoring.

Well, there are not very many choices in a competitive setting.
If you run a mech army, DAVU Falcons, Serpents with Dire Avengers or Storm Guardians are the best choices.
Jetbikes are useful for last-turn objective grabbing. But you eventually don't know which turn is the final one. So Jetbikes can be a gamble.

A couple other options I have been attempting to use, with varying degrees of success.

Rather than a DAVU squad in a serpent, a guardian squad with shuri cannon in a EML serpent. Range of the EML lets the serpent stay further back. If it gets popped, you can move to an objective in your backfield with the guardians and still have range to affect midfield with the cannon. This only works if the serpent got popped far back, if you pushed it ahead the guardian squad will get eaten quickly. BS3 is crappy, but having the option to do something without walking into rapid fire range is nice.

Second is 3 jetbikes, cannon, and a warlock with a spear and destructor. Reserved to start, and then picks a side and turbo boosts towards the enemies backfield. There they can threaten dreads, artillery, and any small objective humper squads. Not the most points effecient, but it has plenty of options and can also hold any objectives it finds.

Looking at returing to the game after close to a decade, my core army was mechanized Alaitoc around a core of rangers/pathfinders back then (and actually seldom used the disruption table, it was considered just a little much). Looking around a little, I don't see any love at all for them these days, are they that substantially worse now in 5th? I know a lot of people didn't care for them even back then, but they were still usable in the right hands, is that no longer the case or is the WS option too much to ignore?

The problem with pathfinders now is that they are the same point cost as they were in the CW:eldar book, but they don't do nearly as much. They are very survivable with a 2+ cover save, but they don't put out much firepower for the amount of points they cost. If they put the disruption table back in, then they would be totally worth it imo.